I received a viscously nasty email from a reader who was upset that I had deleted his comment to one of my posts. The comment in question was an invective filled off-topic rant whose sole purpose was to call me as many names as possible. I can take name calling and insults, they don't really mean al that much to me. The need to be insulting generally arises from a subconscious understanding of the utter weakness of one's argument. Alas, there was no attempt at argument or debate. It was abuse for the sake of abuse and I deleted it without hesitation.

He discovered that the only response his comment got was a quick deletion and tried to leave another. It really pissed him off when he discovered that he had been banned. So he emailed me.

Much more of the same lunatic rambling and hurling of epithets ensued. I mean the language was so foul you would have thought it was the script for a Democratic Party fund raiser. Somewhere toward the end (no I'm not going to reproduce any of it here) he slipped up. He actually tried to make a point. He should have just stuck with lunatic ranting. Actual thought was not his strong suit.

His argument, of course, was that my deletion of his comment and banning of his IP address represented a violation of the “free speech rights granted to him under the First Amendment.” I don't think this guy has ever actually read the First Amendment. Somewhere in his past, probably the third grade, his teacher told him that the First Amendment granted him the right to free speech and that is all he really knows on the subject. So I'm going to do him a favor. Not only am I going to quote the entire First Amendment, I'm going to put the parts relevant to our discussion in bold.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Now if I really wanted to educate this character I would also explain at length that the First Amendment does not grant the right to freedom of speech. The First Amendment assumes that you have that right, and prevents the government from taking it away. (Or at least its supposed to if you don't count campaign finance reform.) But I suspect that the effort would be wasted.

Here's a note to anyone who thinks they have a right to free speech in my, or any other blog's, comments. YOU DON'T. If you want space to spout whatever idiocy crosses your mind I invite you to head on over to BlogSpot, start a blog of your own, and leave me the hell alone.

Posted by: Stephen Macklin at 04:41 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment